


Roses Without Thorns

by orphan_account



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Galra Keith (Voltron), Gay Keith (Voltron), Just a warning one of the main plot points is death so yea, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, Keith/Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, M/M, Pining Keith (Voltron), aight I’m out, i dont know how to write fanfiction, keith is actually good at feelings in this fic for some reason, not an au, the author is struggling, this is my first fic forgive me, yea lance is bad a feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:55:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28039536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Lance knows he’s gone, but for some reason he can’t believe it.He watched him die.He died in his arms.But Lance wants him back.————————————————While out on a mission, Lance gets caught in an ambush. He’s stranded on an alien planet for two days with out food or water.And Keith comes back for him.Lance realizes that whenever he’s close to death, Keith comes back.And that... doesn’t go well for him.He starts pushing himself, not eating for days, running straight into battle.All just to see him again.
Relationships: Allura/Romelle (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Kudos: 12





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so hi...  
> I’m Nerd.  
> And this is my first actual fic yaaaaaaaay  
> If you can’t tell, I’ve never done this before so yeah...  
> Trying to figure it out as I go-  
> Don’t know why I chose a Klance fic as my first actual fic but here we are  
> Uh yeah  
> *finger guns* see ya

The gentle sunlight streamed down on the open street, illuminating the scattered people slowly moving along the narrow road. The ground was solid and hard under his feet, jolting him back to the moment with every step.

It hadn’t been a great morning for him. He woke up from another dream, the ones haunting him for the past few days. He knew his love was gone, but his brain refused to believe it.

And there his brain went again, running back, as it always did, to the dark eyes and mischievous grin of his love.

He’s gone, he said to himself, I’ve already tried to get him back; it didn’t work.

But maybe…

No. Remember what he said. 

“You can’t have roses without thorns, my dear.”

Those words bounced around inside his head. Roses. Thorns.

Oh, how he wished for roses without thorns.

For a world without pain.

Life without death.

Love without loss.

He took a deep breath and several steps forward, running smack into a sign on the sidewalk.

He turned around just in time to see Pidge laughing at him. She was holding her side, leaning onto Allura, who was also laughing and struggling to hold Pidge up.

Lance huffed. He didn’t understand what was so funny about him running into a sign.

“You guys are so mean to me,” he pouted.

“It-it’s just that we told you like fou-four times that there was a sign there,” Pidge snickered, “Hunk even tried to push you out of the way, but it’s like you purposely walked into the sign.”

“Lost in thought again?” Hunk asked, gently placing a hand on his shoulder.

Lance screwed up his face. He hadn’t talked to anyone about his dreams yet.

They weren’t exactly dreams, more like memories. Memories of a worse time.

He didn’t want to weigh them down with this.

It was a stressful time for them all.

He finally looked down at the sign he ran into. It was a sign for a flower shop.

What In Carnation?

“Come on, let’s stop here, since Lance is so insistent on running into their sign,” Allura said, a slight chuckle in her voice.

Allura took Lance’s arm and dragged him inside.

“Maybe we can get a couple’s discount,” she said, grinning.

“Aren’t you gay?” Lance asked, thoroughly confused.

“They don’t know that.”

Lance rolled his eyes and clutched on to Allura’s arm. He flashed back to his days as “Loverboy Lance.”

Keith was so jealous then. He would go red in the face anytime Lance flirted with another girl. Or guy.

Lance wasn’t dumb. He noticed how Keith stared at him. But he did enjoy a prank. 

So even if he did like Keith’s stupid mullet or his gorgeous eyes, he flirted with every cute person he saw, just to drive Keith insane.

That did include Allura. It was a short thing.

She was, admittedly, very cute. Also Lance’s type. Intense but soft. Like Keith.

But also, she was, a lesbian. 

Romelle cleared that up for everyone. 

Very succinctly.

By kissing Allura right in front of everyone. 

Allura was blushing for a solid hour after that, but she couldn’t hide her grin.

Lance blinked. Back to the present.

Allura was talking to the little old man at the register, gushing about a wedding coming up and trying to find a flower provider. The old man offered to give them some free samples if they would consider him.

“Oh, sir,” Allura cried, “You’re so kind.”

Pidge was hiding her laugher by sticking her face into a bouquet of sunflowers. Hunk was petting the store cat, a little shorthair tabby, winding her way through his legs. 

Lance’s gaze wandered around the flowershop. It was a cute little room, with bouquets and displays scattered here and there.  
Allura let go of his arm and followed the old man toward some white roses. There was a whole wall of roses, which Lance found odd, the shops name being about carnations. 

A full rainbow of roses. From red to purple, and everywhere in between.

Lance walked toward the purple roses, closest to the shop window.

He pulled one rose from its perch on the wall.

Tears pricked at his eyes as thorns bit into his skin.

Roses were Keith’s favorite flower.

He always called them a metaphor for life. He was actually quite rambly when you could get him talking. And Lance could always get him talking. 

And purple was their color.

Pidge came up with it actually. She said it was because of their lions. Red and blue.

Blood beaded on Lance’s fingers and a single drop fell to the floor.

He was seeing Keith in everything. 

There was no escaping it.

The dark eyes of the tabby cat.

The long, dark haired individual walking outside.

The purple rose.

The blood on his fingers.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

The memories flooded back into him.


	2. 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance takes a trip down memory lane to a place he would rather not remember.

Lance sighed and stretched out, lounging over the couch. He landed across Keith’s lap, and Keith smirked down at him.

“Tired, pretty boy?” He asked.

“Well, somebody,” Lance responded, poking Keith in the chest, “kept me up all night.”

“Wasn’t my fault, now was it?” Keith snickered.

A sharp knock on the door.

Pidge stood in the doorway, obviously not impressed with their flirting.

“We’re coming up on the system now, lovebirds,” she said, “Hurry up.”

Keith leaned down and kissed Lance before abruptly standing, knocking Lance to the floor.

“You heard the lady,” Keith said, smiling down at Lance, “Hurry up.”

Lance huffed and worked his way to his feet.

It was Keith’s fault he was this tired. He stuck his tongue out at Keith as they walked out of the room and down the wide-open hall.

Lance found it hard to believe that, if all went well, this would be one of his last times in the castle. He had so many memories here. So many lifetimes had come and gone in this ship.

He changed into his armor and made his way up to the brig, warming when he saw that he beat Keith here.

Pidge and Allura were talking strategy, something about coming in low and doing as much damage with the castle as possible. Shiro was comforting Hunk, who seemed to be panicking. 

“It’ll be okay,” Lance said, walking over to Shiro and Hunk, “I’m here, so nothing can go wrong.”

Hunk smiled softly, but his panic didn’t seem to fade.

“Don’t listen to him, Hunk,” Keith announced, walking into the room, “He wouldn’t know competence if it came up and bit him in the butt.”

“Oh yeah, Mr. Mullet Man? Which one of us left the team for six months because ‘it’s not a phase?’”

“I’m not emo,” Keith grumbled.

“The black color scheme and mullet says otherwise,” Lance shot back.

Pidge bounced over and whacked Lance on the head. It hurt enough to get him to pay attention to her.

“Shut it, lovebirds,” she snapped, “The planet’s coming up, and we need to get our plan sorted out.”

Keith huffed, and Lance shot him a glare. Even if they were dating, and even if Lance thought Keith was cute, that didn’t stop him from being insufferable. The stupid boy didn’t realize how lucky he was to have Lance. 

Oh well. That’s not important right now.

Pidge and Allura outlined the plan. 

They were crashing a big Galra summit, one where they elected the new leader. If they could stop the summit from happening, hopefully, a power vacuum would destroy the empire from the inside out. 

Lance didn’t pay very much attention to the first half of the plan, since that was mostly Allura and Coran’s job. He perked up when Voltron was mentioned.

“We need to do as much damage with our lions first,” Pidge explained, “They’re more maneuverable and have different weapons. Then, we come in with Voltron as a finishing move.”

The atmosphere in the room was heavy but determined. They all wanted this to be the end. 

The end of the war.

Possibly the end of Voltron.

To resign their mantle as “Defenders of the Universe.”

But this plan had to work perfectly.

Keith walked over to Lance and put a hand on his shoulder.

“See you on the other side, pretty boy,” he whispered, kissing Lance’s forehead.

“I wish we could just end the war without battles,” Lance sighed.

“You can’t have roses without thorns, my dear.”

“Oh, shut up,” Lance said, unable to hold back his smile.

Keith kissed him for the last time and then headed to his lion. Lance, in turn, headed to his, and they took off from the ship.

The first part of the plan went generally well. The Castle was able to come into the planet’s atmosphere and deal a lot of damage to the base.

What went wrong, however, was when Voltron was brought out.

It seemed that the galra had expected an attack.

An attack from Voltron.

They had weapons specifically designed to take down the lions.

Lance’s fancy flying had gotten him in trouble before, but now it came in handy. He could dodge the electric blasts from the cannons before taking them out with his ice beam.

“Is everyone okay?” He heard a cracking voice call through his comm. It was Shiro.

“I’m fine,” Lance responded, “But I don’t see anyone else.”

“There’s an electric field that’s shutting down our tech,” Pidge said, “It’s not fully charged yet, but when they get it up and running, it’ll shut down all-“

The radio cut off and lance felt his lion lurch.

“Blue!” He shouted, “Are you okay?”

The lion fell from the sky and crashed to the ground.

Lance was unharmed but rather dazed. He crawled out of his lion and on to the surface of the planet. 

Blue didn’t look damaged, but it was shut down.

“Anyone, come in!” Lance called into his helmet comm.

“I’m here,” he heard a dazed voice say. It was Shiro.

“Our lions are down,” Pidge called through the comm, “We’ll have to do the rest of the battle on foot. Good news is, their tech is shut down, too.”

“Thank god,” Hunk wheezed, “I couldn’t fight those cannons.”

“Regroup at the radio tower,” Shiro called, “Also, has anyone heard from Keith?”

“I’m here,” he said into the comm. His voice was calm and collected. Lance knew that voice. It meant he was ready to kick some Galra butt.

Lance made his way toward the radio tower. He saw Pidge’s green armor and signaled to her. She waved back and helped him onto the platform.

“The others are coming,” she told him, “And all we have left to do is handle the actual galra at the summit.”

She pointed toward the ruins of a building, where maybe 40 galra were congregated. 

Hunk climbed onto the platform, and Shiro was close behind him

“Where. Is. Keith.” Shiro asked, voice hard.

Lance shrugged.

Pidge snickered and elbowed Lance in the side, pointing at the ruined building again. On the ledge, overtop of the galra, a little red and white figure crouched, sword in hand. Lance snickered and waved to get Shiro’s attention.

Shiro spotted Keith on the ledge and hit himself in the face with his palm.

“That boy will be the death of me,” He grumbled, starting toward the group, “Come on guys, let’s get him some backup.”

The group moved stealthily toward the group of galra. Keith seemed to spot them coming, and gestured to something to Shiro. Lance couldn’t tell what it was, but Shiro seemed to understand.

“Spread out,” he directed, “Surround them.”

The paladins complied, and Lance kept one eye on Keith the whole time.

I swear, if that boy dies, I will kill his ghost myself.

Keith jumped off the roof.

He landed smack in the middle of the galra group, taking out one and scattering the others. A few of the galra turned and attacked Keith, but others ran out toward the circle of paladins.

Lance took on a few.

He was dodging.

He was weaving.

He was fighting out of his skin.

The rest of the battle passed in a blur. Lance wasn’t paying attention to any of the others, only on his fights. 

He wanted this war to be over with, and he fought like the war depended on it.

The galra stopped coming. 

There were no more.

Bodies littered the ground at Lance’s feet as he yanked his helmet from his head and yelled into the void.

“Oi, pretty boy,” Keith called from across the field, “Quiet down will you.”

Keith’s face was spattered with blue blood. He looked tired and worn, and Lance had thought he never looked so beautiful.

Lance took one step toward Keith and then he heard the gunshot.

It was a quiet pew that emanated from nowhere in particular. 

He thought nothing of it.

He thought nothing of it until Keith tipped forward.

Lance was confused, thinking that maybe he passed out from the shock. He ran forward, thinking he would carry Keith back to the castle, they would bicker again and kiss, like they always did.

That is not what happened.

As soon as Lance approached Keith, he saw a bright blue stain spreading from his side.

Galra blood?

Lance picked Keith’s body up and stared at his chest.

The blue blood was spreading from a crack in his armor.

Keith had been shot.

Lance couldn’t think. He couldn’t move. All he could do was watch Keith’s face fall still and the blood continued to spread from the wound.

Lance’s breath stopped at the same time Keith’s did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hullo it’s me again  
> Wooooo another chapter  
> I’ll try to regulary update, but also its exam week and im failing calc  
> so yeah  
> bye i guess  
> -Nerd

**Author's Note:**

> :p  
> Also sorry it’s unfinished  
> Planning to finish it tho  
> Just dont have it all written out yet  
> Expect between 10-20 chapters  
> I think  
> Dont hold me to that  
> We got 0 motivation but a l l the inspiration  
> See ya ig  
> -Nerd


End file.
